by Gary Gibson
Sam followed Wardell to the command deck and watched as the Howlers once again piled wood and leaves beneath the closed ramp. Sam ordered the vents closed, and the bottled air supply switched on.
Dawn was already approaching. The palisade hadn’t lasted nearly as long as any of them had hoped, but it had at least bought them a little extra time.
The Howlers departed shortly before sunrise, and Sam and the others repeated the exercise of the day before, using improvised shovels to clear away ash before dropping the ramp.
It wasn’t until later on the afternoon of their seventh day on Aranyani that Traynor and DeWitt suddenly appeared at the north-west edge of the clearing.
* * *
A shout went up as soon as the two men staggered forward before collapsing, exhausted, onto the not-grass just beyond the palisade. Karl and Ethan were the first to reach them.
Sam, who along with Irish and Wardell had been busy helping reconstruct the palisade, was on his way back from the improvised latrine behind one of the lander’s legs when he saw Ethan help a limping DeWitt back onto his feet. Traynor hobbled like a crippled man as Karl got an arm under his shoulder.
‘Where’s Joshua?’ asked Sam, hurrying over to meet them.
Traynor shook his head wordlessly, and Sam felt his throat constrict. He followed behind as the two men were helped over to the lander, where they sat on the ramp’s lower edge.
Jess, who must have seen their arrival from up on the command deck, came hurrying out with the very last of their water supply and helped them to drink. Their faces were dark with sweat and mud, their jumpsuits torn and ragged.
Sam pushed himself in front of Traynor. ‘First tell me what happened to Joshua.’
DeWitt shook his head. ‘Didn’t make it.’ He sounded like he could hardly speak.
Yeah, I gathered that, thought Sam, though hearing it said out loud made it that little bit worse.
‘Did you find the building?’ demanded Amit, who had followed Jess down from the command deck.
Traynor shook his head. ‘There’s no building.’
‘You mean you didn’t find it,’ insisted Amit, apparently oblivious to the man’s fatigue, ‘or that there’s nothing there?’
‘Nothing there,’ said Traynor. ‘It’s just some big, dumb rock. Sure, from a distance it looks like something, but…’ His voice trailed off.
Sam glanced at Irish, who stood chewing her lip as she listened. Her expression made it clear she did not consider this an adequate response. Neither did Sam.
‘Some kind of natural formation is all it is,’ said DeWitt. He sat with his hands hooked over his knees, eyes fixed on the ground. ‘That picture was grainy as shit, anyway.’
‘At least tell us how you managed to stay alive all night,’ said Irish.
‘How long did it take you to get there?’ asked Wardell.
DeWitt coughed and started to reply. ‘Got there a little after midday when—’
Traynor snapped a look at DeWitt and he paused mid-sentence.
‘Midday?’ asked Amit. ‘So you presumably had plenty of time to look around before you returned.’
‘If it’s nothing but a big rock,’ Sam asked carefully, ‘why didn’t you come straight back?’
He saw something flicker across Traynor’s face. ‘Joshua twisted his ankle,’ he said. ‘He couldn’t run or walk, so we had to carry him. That slowed us down a lot.’
Sam nodded. It was plausible enough. In a place like this, even a minor injury could become a death sentence.
‘And that meant there was no way we’d get him back here before nightfall,’ Traynor continued, ‘especially given we’d already spent half a day getting there.’ He shrugged wearily. ‘So we had to find some place to shelter for the night. We were still looking by the time the sun went down.’
DeWitt nodded beside him. ‘Then we heard them coming.’
‘The Howlers,’ said Irish.
‘Obviously you found somewhere to hide,’ said Sam, ‘otherwise you wouldn’t have made it back here. Am I right?’ He watched Traynor carefully, feeling like a hawk circling high above unwary prey, unseen and unheard.
Traynor nodded. ‘Turns out they don’t like water much. There’s a river most of the way there—we forded it a little after nightfall, but the current was too strong for us and—well, Joshua got swept away.’ He regarded Sam through furrowed eyebrows. ‘Nearly sucked us down as well, with the Howlers on our trail. DeWitt and me swam to the far shore and found a tree—a massive, ancient thing with its trunk split wide open, probably by lightning. We climbed up inside it and hid there the rest of the night.’
‘And they didn’t sniff you out?’ Sam persisted.
Traynor didn’t even try to hide his irritation. ‘The tree was right on the edge of the river,’ he scowled. ‘Maybe that put them off. We heard them howling all along the shore the whole damn night, but by the sound of it I don’t think there could have been more than, I don’t know, five or six of them. Mind you, we were covered in so much mud and shit, maybe they simply couldn’t smell us.’ He shook his head. ‘Worst night of my whole life.’
‘A week,’ said Ethan, his voice brittle. ‘One damn week, and that’s nearly a third of us gone. At this rate, we’ll be lucky if there’s anyone left a month from now.’
‘Shut the hell up,’ said Kevin. ‘That kind of talk is a long way from helping.’
‘He’s got a point, though,’ said Traynor, lifting his head to look around at the rest of them. ‘We’ve been sitting here waiting for them to kill us. It ought to be the other way around.’
Jess nodded tightly. ‘Damn right.’
‘I don’t like to say it,’ Ethan muttered, ‘but…I’m beginning to think there’s something to that idea.’
‘No!’ Kim, who had followed the rest of them over, stared around with a face full of thunder. ‘This is one small part of an entire world. We’re on their territory, and we already know there are far more of them than there are than of us. Moving to the mesa at the soonest opportunity is the only sane option left to us.’
‘Or maybe it’d just be more of the same,’ said Jess, ‘with us under siege up there instead of down here in the lander.’ She looked at Sam. ‘You know, I got to wondering if there might be some way to use the lander’s printer to manufacture napalm or something like it. Now that’d send the fuckers running.’
Irish gave Sam a look that said stop this before it goes any further.
‘There’s something you need to know,’ Sam said, loud enough to shut them all up. ‘We found something on our trip out to the mesa.’
Their eyes all swung towards him as he reached into a pocket and took out the bullet casing. He stepped towards Traynor and held it out to him. ‘I wanted to wait until you were back before I talked to everyone about this. We came across a clearing filled with the bones of what must have been thousands—and I mean thousands—of massacred Howlers.’
‘A bullet casing?’ said Jess in confusion.
‘We had enough time to take a careful look at the remains. From what we could see, some of them—perhaps even all of them—were killed by automatic gunfire.’
Everyone started shouting either at Sam or each other. Sam put his hands up until they quietened down.
Traynor reached out, and Sam handed him the casing. He held it close to his eyes, DeWitt beside him leaning over to get a good look at it.
‘Hollow-point,’ Traynor mumbled, looking back up at Sam. ‘Copper casing. Badly corroded, so it must have been lying around a long, long time.’
‘But where did it come from?’ Amit demanded. He sounded like he was on the verge of hysterics.
Traynor shook his head wearily, then passed the casing to Jess, who studied it with equal care. She, in turn, passed it to Kevin.
‘Personally,’ said Kevin, looking around, ‘I’d bet my life on this being manufactured by human hands. We need to find whoever made this, and find out what they want from us.’
Irish c
aught Sam’s attention, then glanced pointedly away from the ramp before walking a short distance away. Sam went over to join her.
‘I don’t know exactly what it is we saw in those pictures Kevin got from the drone,’ she said, ‘but I know that wasn’t just some rock.’
‘But it could still be some kind of natural formation, couldn’t it? Maybe we all saw what we wanted to see—’
‘No.’ She shook her head firmly, then glanced carefully past Sam’s shoulder. He knew she was looking at Traynor.
‘He’s lying,’ she said, looking back at him. ‘And you know it too,’ she added, her voice a fierce whisper.
Sam’s shoulders slumped in defeat. ‘Except, why would he lie? Either he and the other two found something, or they didn’t.’
‘Which means whatever they did find, he’s got some reason for keeping it to himself,’ she hissed. ‘And if he’s lying about that, then…’
She let the words trail off, her eyes fixed on his. Then he’s lying about everything else as well.
Which meant if Traynor had found something out there, it might have been worth killing Joshua for.
22
THE BUILDING
Any further arguments, speculation or discussion had to be put aside in the face of the very real need to finish repairing and rebuilding the palisade before the next Howler onslaught—for there were none amongst them who had any doubt one was coming.
By the end of that evening, they had finished bolstering the palisade with extra logs and bracing, as well as repairing parts of the wiring. Even with all eleven of them working together, they were barely finished by the time they heard the first cries of the Howlers. By then there was nothing left to do but drag themselves back up the ramp and wait another night out.
* * *
‘I’m not sure how much more of this I can take,’ Kevin muttered a few hours later on the command deck.
He sat next to Sam, watching on the screens as Howlers ran back and forth between the lander and the forest. It was their third night under siege, and despite all their preparations the palisade had barely lasted an hour. The Howlers had pushed the tips of their spears through the electrified wire, twisting it until it broke, then thrown looped vines over their wooden defences and pulled them down.
Karl, once again, had been forced to disconnect the power cables and drop them outside before he could fully close the ramp. He’d still been standing next to the ramp controls when the Howlers broke through, watching as they raced towards him and even managing to grab hold of the ramp’s outer edge before trying to drag it back down.
Worse, they had nearly succeeded. The ramp’s hydraulic systems had struggled under their collective weight. Karl had remained at his post, but he’d come face to face with one of the creatures in the moments before the ramp finally slammed shut. When Sam went to speak to him, he’d found the man in a profound state of shock.
One screen showed a flare of light close to the edge of the clearing. The camera filters automatically adjusted for the sudden brightness, and they watched as a Howler emerged, carrying a flaming torch as it raced under the lander.
Another screen showed the same Howler plunging its torch deep into a freshly built bonfire. It was ablaze within moments, sending a rush of heat against the underside of the ramp.
Sam glanced around the command deck, seeing read-outs and screens flicker and shift in response. ‘Are the vents closed?’
Kevin tapped at the keyboard before him. ‘They are now. We won’t need the bottled air straight away, but soon enough.’
‘How much is left?’
‘Enough to get us through tonight,’ said Kevin. ‘That’s it.’ He turned to look at Sam. ‘We should take the truck back out again at first light with as many people as we can fit on it. We’ll explore up and down that damn chasm all day if we have to until we find a way across. There’s got to be some way onto that mesa.’
‘That still means someone’s going to get left behind.’
‘We’ll come back for them,’ Kevin said doggedly. ‘Maybe there’s not air enough for all of us, but there’s got to be enough for at least a few people to hang on for one more night after this. That way, we can do two round trips.’ He shook his head. ‘Or maybe we can all go, with some of us walking and the rest riding on the truck.’
So it had come to that, Sam realised. If they didn’t find shelter, they were going to die.
‘I’m not going,’ he said.
Kevin blinked rapidly. ‘You’re not making sense. If you stay here, it’s suicide.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’ Sam glanced around to make sure they were alone on the command deck, a gesture that had become a habit. ‘I mean, I’m going back out to where we thought that building was.’
‘Ah.’ Kevin nodded, his eyes glinting in the semi-darkness. ‘You didn’t believe Vic’s story.’
Sam looked closely at him. ‘You didn’t either?’
Kevin laughed and shook his head. ‘Something about it sounded…rehearsed.’
‘More than rehearsed,’ Sam agreed. ‘Their entire story had more holes in it than the Titanic.’
‘You know,’ said Kevin, ‘DeWitt has looked none of us in the eye since he got back. Ethan went to talk to him to get his version of things without Vic there to complicate things, but Jess isn’t letting anyone get near him.’
I should have known about that, thought Sam, and tried to hide his irritation.
‘Amit was right,’ he said, his voice flat. ‘We shouldn’t have let Traynor go out there. It should have been just Joshua and one other person, someone we can trust. I need to see what’s really there. I’ll leave at sunrise as soon as I think it’s safe.’
‘And what about the rest of us?’ asked Kevin. You can’t just up and disappear without a word of explanation.’
Sam gave him a faint smile. ‘Then I guess you’re going to have to cover for me.’
‘This,’ said Kevin, ‘is where I remind you you’re barely recovered from an injury. A couple of days before that you were nearly poisoned to death.’
‘You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know. I can make the trip if I have to, especially reborn into a younger body.’
Kevin opened his mouth like he was about to make a protest, then closed it again. ‘You know, I often forget we’re all younger than we remember. It’s like I still can’t get used to the idea.’
‘When morning comes and the Howlers have gone,’ suggested Sam, ‘we’ll tell the others we’ve gone to do a little foraging. That’ll be our cover story while I go see whatever Vic found.’
‘And when I come back without you?’ Kevin asked. ‘What do I tell people then?’
‘Just tell them I convinced you I work better on my own.’ He shrugged. ‘Which is true.’
‘This,’ said Kevin, ‘from the man who told us we couldn’t all go wandering off on our own.’ He shook his head with sudden determination. ‘Not a chance, Sam. I’m going with you—all the way there and back.’
It was Sam’s turn to shake his head. ‘We need you here to run the fabricator and fix the truck and a million other things. I’m not so necessary.’
‘You’re not the only one who can run,’ Kevin insisted. ‘Look, until about a week ago I was overweight, middle-aged, and I struggled to stand up from my couch. Now I feel like I could run halfway around this world without breaking a sweat.’
Sam couldn’t help but admire the man’s persistence. ‘I’m sorry, Kevin. You’d slow me down, fit or not.’
Kevin made an exasperated sound. ‘They’ll smell the bullshit a mile off when I tell them you went foraging on your own! What if they want to go looking for you when you don’t come back after a couple of hours?’
‘Things have changed since the Howlers appeared,’ said Sam. ‘They won’t have the time and energy to spare looking for me. And if it turns out Traynor and DeWitt have been telling the truth about what they found, I’ll come clean when I get back and take responsibility f
or my actions. But if I do find something out there…’
Kevin drummed the fingers of both hands on the console before him, his mouth twisted up. ‘I don’t like it.’
Sam regarded Kevin evenly until he finally shook his head in exasperation.
‘Shithead,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘I’d better print you another map.’
* * *
Sam slept in a corner of the command deck and woke just before dawn. He retrieved his spear and hunting knife and went in search of Kevin, finding him asleep in a bay on a lower deck. He roused him and together they made their way down to the lower cargo bay, where Irish and Wardell stood squeezed in between the front of the truck and the still-closed ramp, shovels in hand.
Sam nodded to them, then noticed one of the water bottles Traynor had taken on his expedition abandoned in a corner. He picked it up and tucked it under one arm.
Wardell operated the controls, and the ramp separated from the hull, dropping to land on top of a fresh mound of hot ash and half-burned wood and leaves. They peered outside and waited, but nothing moved or made a sound. Once they were certain the Howlers were gone, they went through the same routine as before, Irish and Wardell jumping down first and using their shovels to sweep as much hot ash out of the way as quickly as possible.
Sam and Kevin were the next out, dropping over the edge of the ramp and rolling away from the remains of the Howler’s bonfire. They stood and brushed burning ash from their jumpsuits, cursing at the heat and the stink of the poisonous leaves.
‘Hey,’ said Wardell, as Sam and Kevin made their way towards the edge of the clearing. ‘Where are you two going?’
Sam stopped and looked back at him. ‘Figured we might do some foraging.’
Wardell regarded him dubiously. ‘Well, be careful. And don’t take too long. Vic’s got an announcement he wants to make later this morning. He wants all of us there.’
Sam regarded him with newfound interest. ‘What kind of announcement?’
Wardell’s expression became cagey. ‘Hell if I know. Just be back before midday, okay?’
